1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a sewing machine capable of tracing an embroidery area on a cloth held by an embroidery frame.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, there is an embroidery machine having an embroidery frame which holds a workcloth to embroider a pattern thereon within the embroidery frame. The size of a sewing area varies depending on the embroidery frame to be used or the embroidery pattern to be sewn. Before actual embroidering using a needle, the operator checks whether embroidering is possible by observing whether an embroidery area the operator wants is within the embroidery frame. To check the embroidery area, a trace mode is widely used in which a relative distance between the embroidery frame and the needle is checked by moving the embroidery frame holding the work cloth along the embroidery area, because the machine head does not move. In the trace mode, to prevent the presser foot and the needle from hitting the embroidery frame during actual embroidering, the trace operation is usually performed with the presser foot and the needle at their highest positions.
In a conventional trace mode, an embroidery area checking method is proposed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. 9-137365. In the embroidery area checking method, a trace speed is controlled by a program that enables the trace speed to change based on the positional relationship between outline data for an embroidery area including an embroidery pattern and an embroidery frame.
However, in the above-mentioned embroidery machine, the embroidery frame can be moved with a variable speed or stopped during a trace operation, but the trace operation is made with the needle and the presser foot raised. When the embroidery frame is positioned too close to the outline of the embroidery area, to check whether the needle or the presser foot will hit the embroidery frame during actual embroidering, the operator has to lower a presser foot lever mounted on the side of the machine head manually so as to lower the presser foot. Moving the presser foot lever prevents needle marks on a work cloth that might occur if the needle were lowered. In this case, for an embroidery machine with multiple heads, each head having multiple needles, it is difficult for the operator to stretch out his/her arm to the presser foot lever mounted on the side of the head so as to lower the presser foot according to the position of the selected needle. As a result, the checking operation is not performed easily in the trace mode to check whether the embroidery pattern can be sewn in the right place.